consider_, I would _not deliberate_; I would _act_. Doubtless the _President possesses such further information as will justify the measure_!"[21] To my mind, that is the worst act of his public life; I cannot justify it. I wish I could find some reasonable excuse for it. What had become of the "sovereignty of the people," the "unalienable right of resistance to oppression?" Would _not consider_; would _not deliberate_; would _act_ without doing either; leave it all to the "high responsibility" of the President, with a "doubtless" he has "further information" to justify the measure! It was a shame to say so; it would have disgraced a Senator in St. Petersburg. Why not have the "further information" laid before the Senate? What would Mr. Adams have said, if President Jackson, Tyler, or Polk, had sent such a message, and some Senator or Representative had counselled submissive action, without considering, without deliberation? With what appalling metaphors would he describe such a departure from the first duty of a statesman; how would the tempestuous eloquence of that old patriot shake the Hall of Congress till it rung again, and the nation looked up with indignation in its face! It is well known what Mr. Adams said in 1834, when Mr. Polk, in the House of Representatives, seemed over-laudatory of the President: "I shall never be disposed to interfere with any member who shall rise on this floor and pronounce a panegyric upon the chief magistrate. 'No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning.'" Yet the future of Mr. Polk was not so obvious in 1834, as the reward of Mr. Adams in 1808.